In his small, dark office, Lt. Colonel Michael Patton sat at his desk in his standard khaki officer fatigues, rummaging through various files delivered to his PC. They consisted of various reports, mostly from the respective Offices of Naval Research and Intelligence. Half of the reports were classified technical documents dealing with new UNSC technology. What they had to do with his new post at Project Tyr was yet to be seen.
Patton absolutely despised deskwork; he would rather have been outside running the annual Special Warfare marathon with the grunts outside of his office building then be stuck sitting behind a desk. Too much of his Spartan training would never wear off. Unfortunately, promotion had its catches. He would only have to do more and more deskwork has he continued to climb rank. Being the executive officer of a brigade that didn't even have a name yet, let alone exist other than on paper, meant a lot of theoretical work.
The clock ticked slowly as he frustratedly ran his hands through his short, brown hair. He had now been working for about 6 hours, though he measured the time not in hours, but in documents finished. He had finished ten now, and was moving onto number eleven. It was titled Technical Report 07812-342: Mk. 15 Acceleration Compensator. The title immediately caught his attention, perhaps the document would reveal a little more about what he was here for. He started reading the report, apparently about a piece of Covenant technology that had been reverse engineered, and used mainly in fighter planes to reduce g-forces dramatically.
The new Mk. 15 model was a progression of this. He quickly read through the specs for the device. It could apparently nullify 14,400 kilonewtons of force for a period of one second. The report also said that it would be equivalent of a one hundred-twenty ton object traveling at over four hundred kilometers per hour.
"What weighs a hundred and twenty tons and is traveling at four hundred kilometers an hour?" he thought to himself, " A Dragon main battle tank and its orbital drop carriage weigh close to one-hundred twenty tons. But why would you want to drop a—Wait a minute, that's it! Covenant soldiers can be hard-dropped without parachutes, and because of that, they are extremely hard to destroy on the way down. Until now, our forces had to rely on parachutes, which makes them extremely vulnerable. Interesting I wonder what this has to do with Project Tyr"
He had started to log his thoughts into his notebook when he heard a knock on his door. "Come in," he invited.
His new commanding officer, Colonel Chloe Leekpai, casually strutted into his office and gracefully returned Patton's salute. She was a tall, voluptuous Asian woman of French-Thai descent, with a long mane of raven black hair that was at least a foot longer than regulation. She was only thirty-five years old, six years older than Patton was. He had met her when he was at OCS. She had been his Advanced Tactics professor, and had always had a special place for him in her heart, though she never coddled him like other favorite students might be.
For a long time, she was the only other officer he could count on. Most other officers viewed him as just a curiosity, one of those Spartan soldiers who had somehow become a commissioned officer.
She said to him, "I see they've got you chained to a desk. When are they gonna let you out?" She spoke fluent English, but a hint of her Thai accent still remained.
He chuckled, "Never. At least it seems that way, Colonel." With that, he offered her a chair.
As she sat down, she spoke to him in a casual, conversational tone, not as a superior officer talking to a subordinate. "Please, Mike, call me Chloe. You're not at OCS anymore, and I do things differently than you're used to."
He almost said "Yes ma'am," but he caught himself. "Yes, Chloe. Old habits die-hard. Is this your first major command? We haven't seen each other much since OCS."
She sighed, "Right now, I could hardly call it a command. My staff consists of you, and about sixteen other aides, mostly non-comms. War is hell, but logistics is even worse."
He laughed at that one, "Well, I guess its true. I hate having to decipher what all of these damn technical reports are after my aide drops them on my desk every morning. I finish one stack, and then the file gremlins replace them with reports I've never even seen before!"
Now Chloe was laughing too, "Whoa, hold on a minute! You made a joke! That's extraordinary!"
"Just because I'm a Spartan doesn't mean I don't know what a joke is, or how to tell one. I was a kid once, an eon or two ago," he said, stuttering slightly.
Though Michael was trying to hide it, Chloe could easily tell he was uncomfortable about being friendly with a superior officer, even her. "Mike, I know you have problems socializing with normal people, but I want you to know that I'm your friend, and I'm here to help you."
That really made Michael uneasy. No one other than a fellow Spartan had ever considered him to be their friend, and he was totally unprepared for this unexpected change. "Y-yes, ma'am," was all he could manage to say.
She continued, "I think it would be a good idea for you to get out and see the world you are fighting to protect, and see how much you've missed. You've got quite a bit of leave time saved up, and I think it would be both fun and good for you if you were to spend it, and go out on the town with some of the other officers. What do ya say?"
"D-do I h-have to?" he stuttered, "I-I r-really don't want to."
She was a little more serious now, but still friendly, "Do I have to make it an order?"
Now Mike realized that resistance was futile, "No ma'am."
"Don't worry, I'll hold your hand," she teased.
"Okay, I'll do it. If it will make you happy, I'll do it."
"Great! Just don't be so nervous, and it'll be fun."
Mike was starting to wonder what the word 'fun' meant. The thought of going into a completely alien environment surrounded by people he didn't have any understanding of, and then trying not to look like a freak, somehow didn't seem fun.

---

This 'fun' trip started out to be even less 'fun' than he had expected. He was sitting at the bar next to a group of other officers at around 2200 local time. The rest of the group was drinking and having a great time, while he sat there nearly silently, cradling a drink that smelled more like kerosene than anything he would want to drink. He was on edge enough that if he jumped out of his skin, no one would have been surprised.
Chloe was sitting right next to him, in some fairly fancy civilian clothes, apparently having quite a blast. She turned to him, "Mike, for Buddha's sake, lighten up a bit. We're here to have a good time, and you're putting quite a dampener on the rest of us. Have you even tried your drink?"
His reply was quite sarcastic, "Oh, I just love to drink jet fuel. Is this your idea of fun, or is this some sick and twisted joke?"
"Just shut up and try it!"
After he pursed his lips and furrowed his eyebrows, he cried, "Okay, I'll try it, if you'll stop prodding me!" He then grabbed the shot glass, and quickly bolted the drink, hoping it would be over quick. It wasn't, he realized, as he starting coughing, feeling a sensation quite like tear gas in his throat. In between coughs, he managed to exclaim, "There! Are you happy now!"
"Good, you've taken your first big step to being human. Let's put you on something a little lighter then. Bartender! One of your famous micro-brews for my friend here!" she chuckled,

---

An hour, and two drinks later, Mike was starting to feel a bit foggy in the head. The second and third drinks had gone down a whole lot smoother than first, and by now, he was laughing and joking, to the best of his ability, with the rest of the bunch.
After another hour, and couple mixed drinks later, he was starting to get tipsy. Though what remained of his inhibitions was gone, he had the presence of mind to stop drinking while he was ahead. He stopped for a moment to try to think, only to be torn out of concentration by a mixture of alcohol, and the most god-awful sound he had ever heard in his life. He turned to see what it was; apparently, a rather inebriated junior Lieutenant was trying her hand at karaoke, and strangling a couple of cats in the process. She was singing, rather, trying to sing an ancient but still popular Pop song, sang in its day by someone named Clay Aiken. The name didn't ring a bell to Mike, but he had heard the song before, and hated every minute of it. The twenty-something singing it couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, and murdered every word in the English language with her "valley girl" accent.
A local bar patron slapped him on the back, and spoke very slurred English to him, "Well, Comrade " he paused a moment, waiting for his name.
"Patton," Mike replied.
"Comrade Patton, I was once in Marines, was for almost twenty years. I was with four-oh-fifth Guards, fought Fascisti (no direct English translation, usually used to describe everything that is evil) at Gorki during The Invasion, defended The Rodina." Like many people with Russian as a first language, he dropped most articles except for those used for emphasis when speaking English. To avoid further confusion, he decided to try Russian next, "So what do you think of this fine establishment." The man was obviously drunk, and being quite facetious.
Mike didn't know what to say. All he could think of was, "It's okay, I guess." Luckily he was a fluent Russian speaker, or else neither of them would be able to understand each other.
The man chuckled, "You may call me Alexi. So, Comrade, what do you think of this 'singer?'" More obvious sarcasm
It was Mike's turn to be sarcastic, "Well, I guess it's okay if you're really drunk. Besides, I'm not much of a suffocating-cat music fan anyway."
Alexi laughed again, and then ordered another drink. This abruptly ended Mike's conversation with him. It can be hard to hold a decent conversation with someone who's drunk.
As Mike started to turn away from the awful singing, it occurred to him that he was actually having this mysterious concept called "fun." Like any combat leader, he regularly paused to check on what his group was doing, as if he had been expecting an Elite to jump out of nowhere. Two of the officers who he didn't know names of were passed out at the bar, and Chloe was dancing in the far corner of the bar in front of the juke box.
A cursory glance at his watch revealed that it was past midnight, local time. He thought to himself, "I think its time to call it a night. I better go get Chloe and beat a hasty retreat."
Concentrating quite a bit more that usual, he walked across the pub interior over to her and tried not to look tipsy. Then something strange happened. Seeing her lithe, nimble form dancing, he realized for the first time how beautiful she was. The glow of her soft, olive skin contrasting with the sharp sheen of her black hair, and her bright emerald-green eyes, pulling and enticing at his heart strings.
When he stopped staring, and walked up to her, he said, "Chloe, I think its time that we called it a night."
She smiled, "Let's head back to my apartment for a minute. It's on the way to your apartment."
Socially inept as he was, Mike didn't see what was going on between Chloe and he right now, but then again, things that would be blindingly obvious to an average guy were completely unknown to him. Being raised in the military had quite a few drawbacks.

---

It took twenty minutes to get to her downtown apartment on the subway, and by the time they got to there, Mike still didn't have clue about why he might be invited to a woman's house in the middle of the night.
She enticed him into her door, and locked it behind her. Both of them were a little tipsy from the alcohol, and had lost their inhibitions hours ago. What happened next would not have been surprising to any normal person. However, when Chloe started to take off her clothes right in front of Mike, he started getting a little alarmed.
He stammered, "W-what are y-you d-doing?!"
"We are going to have a good time?" she replied casually.
Mike was about to reply, "More good times?" not knowing what she meant at first, but it became suddenly clear to him after she flung off her bra, and started unbuttoning his jacket. After she pulled off his shirt, she kissed him softly, then whispered, "No one has to know."
At that point, he stopped resisting, and just went with the flow

---

About an hour later, he lay silently with her in her queen size bed, painful memories starting to flood back to him. Memories from the last night before he under went the surgical enhancements integral to the Spartan program. His commanding officer gave everyone a free day to spend as they chose before undergoing the risky surgery. He chose to spend it with one of his squad mates, Amanda. They had been in love with each other from almost the first day they met, and had decided to break military regulations on what ended up being their last night together. They slipped into the wilderness area surrounding the training complex, and made love to one another for the first—and last time.
She died not long after, from complications in the enhancement process. When he learned of her death, he tried desperately to forget her, and move on with his life, dedicating more and more of himself to being a soldier. He thought he had succeeded, until now.
Chloe was lying quietly beside him, nearly asleep. He turned to her, put his head on her shoulder, and started sobbing.
When she felt his tears run down her breast, and heard his quiet sobs, she whispered, "Mike, what's wrong? Why are you crying?"
He looked up into her big, green eyes, tears running down his cheeks, "I'm sorry, it just that, uh, being with you brought back a lot of painful memories." He then told her the reason why he was crying, and by the time he was finished, she was crying too.
After a moment of crying in each other's arms, their lips found each other, and they started kissing softly. They then made love again, and afterward laid locked together in a passionate embrace for a while before drifting off to sleep together.

---

As the first rays of light began to break through the Venetian blinds, Mike's eyes slowly opened to the world. "Where am I?" he thought as he started to stir, "my apartment isn't painted blue."
He pulled the blankets back, and slowly sat up in the bed, "This is definitely not my apartment. What the hell happened to me?" he thought as years of ingrained combat instinct began to kick in, "Think Mike! Where were you last night? Identify the problem and find the solution."
His mind began to race through the events of the previous night, trying to resort them and commit them to memory properly, "I was at that bar with Chloe and some other officers, I started home with her she brought me back to her apartment! Did it really all happen?"
He slowly turned to his left, and looked down to see the sleeping form of Chloe, her usually well-brushed hair disheveled from sleep. The sudden realization of what happened hit Mike like a ton of bricks, "Oh shit! We are in serious trouble if anyone finds out!"
Mike felt trapped by the truth, his mind kept conjuring images of court-martials, mixed in with bad memories from training of being caught outnumbered, flailing desperately against surrounding attackers. He got up out of the bed without making a sound, threw on his clothes, and was out of the door in less than two minutes.
As soon as he was out of the apartment building, he started into an all-out sprint back towards his apartment. He covered the three-kilometer distance in a little more than three minutes, wowing a couple of morning joggers.
As soon as he got home, he turned the hot water on in the shower, stripped his clothes off and stepped into the nearly scalding hot water. He caught his breath, and started collecting his thoughts.
Meanwhile, Chloe slowly drifted into consciousness. She slowly opened her eyes, and looked to her left expecting to see someone there. All that was there was an area of exposed sheet, with the blankets hurriedly peeled back. "So it wasn't just a dream, it actually happened," she thought, "we could get in a whole lot of trouble. Speaking of we, where is Mike?"
She got up out of the bed, and quickly wrapped herself with her bathrobe. She walked through her small flat, and found it empty of life except for her. "He must've gone home in a panic, without even so much as a goodbye. I should call him and see how he's doing, but first I better get cleaned up, I feel like a pig."

---

Just as Mike was stepping out of the shower after a long soak, he heard the sound of the landline phone ringing. He dashed out of the bathroom and hurdled the living room couch to get to the receiver. He nervously picked up the cordless receiver, wondering who it was on the end of the line. "Hello?" he said.
He instantly recognized the voice on the other end as Chloe's, "Mike? It's me, Chloe."
All he could manage to say was, "Hi."
She continued, "Mike, about last night; I don't think we should just run away from it like you did this morning. What happened, happened. We can't change it, so we might as well just enjoy it."
"Reality check: we could get court-martialed for what we did! It's clearly forbidden for two—,"
She cut him off, "Mike, for Buddha's sake, that reg hasn't been seriously enforced for almost a decade. I've been in the JAG's office on many occasions and none of the cases had anything to do with fraternization."
Mike sighed, mostly because of the relief her voice but partly because of exasperation, "Chloe, I'd rather not chance it," he paused for a moment, "It's good to hear your voice. I'm sorry I left in such a panic, I should have told you."
"People make mistakes, Mike. You can't avoid it. Listen, I've gotta go, I've got some things to do, but I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"I'll be fine, I guess."